Martin Milner, who
starred on TV on “Adam-12” with Kent McCord and, earlier, on “Route 66” with
George Maharis, died Sunday night, Diana Downing, a representative for his fan
page, confirmed. He was 83.
Milner was also
known for his roles as a jazz guitarist in the brilliant 1957 film “Sweet Smell
of Success” and in the 1967 camp classic “Valley of the Dolls.”
Milner began acting in movies while a teen, after his father
got him an agent, first appearing in the 1947 classic “Life With Father.” The
film starred William Powell and Irene Dunne, and thus Milner, along with his
co-star Elizabeth Taylor, bridged the generations in Hollywood between the golden age and
contemporary era.
He appeared as
Officer Pete Molloy alongside Kent McCord’s Officer Jim Reed in NBC’s “Adam-12”
from 1968-75. Molloy was the seasoned, savvy veteran bringing along Reed who
was, at first, a rookie.
The innovative
series had a more realistic quality than previous cop shows: The partners, on
which the show narrowly focused, would patrol with no idea what they would
encounter through the course of the day, and viewers got to witness the highs
and lows in their lives.
Milner had a long
association with Jack Webb, whose Mark VII Ltd. produced “Adam-12” and had
produced “Dragnet” since 1951. After Webb and Milner met on the set of the
movie “Halls of Montezuma” in 1950, Webb cast Milner in various roles on
“Dragnet” in the early ’50s, first on radio and then when the crime drama
transitioned to TV, where Milner appeared in six episodes of “Dragnet” from
1952-55.
Milner even appeared
as a drummer in the Webb-directed 1955 feature “Pete Kelly’s Blues.” (The actor
did not know how to play the guitar, so he was not really playing in “Sweet
Smell of Success.”)
Webb later chose
Milner to star in “Adam-12” and directed the pilot episode; as a producer, Webb
liked to do crossover episodes between his various series for promotional
purposes; Officers Molloy and Reed were introduced on episodes of “Dragnet” and
also appeared on episodes of the brief Mark VII show “The D.A.,” starring Robert
Conrad, as well as on “Emergency.”
“Route 66” ran on
CBS from 1960-64, about a decade before “Adam-12” and resolutely not produced
by Webb: Written and lensed across North America and inspired by the spirit of
Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” the series followed Milner’s Tod Stiles and
George Maharis’ Buz Murdock as they traveled from town to town in a Corvette,
exploring social issues and the changing cultural landscape.
As “Adam-12” ended
in 1975, Milner transitioned smoothly to the Irwin Allen-produced series “Swiss
Family Robinson,” in which he played the paterfamilias. When that series proved
short lived, Milner went on to appear in a variety of TV movies; there was also
a guest spot on “Police Story.”
In the 1989 TV
movie “Nashville Beat,” Kent McCord (who had a story credit) and Milner
reunited onscreen, with McCord as a cop from L.A.
who visits Milner, a onetime LAPD officer who moved to Nashville and rose to captain. Together they
fight a man behind increasing gang activity.
Also in the ’80s
Milner guested on “Fantasy
Island
After his last
visit with Jessica Fletcher, the actor appeared on “Diagnosis Murder” in 1997
and thereupon retired from the screen.
Back at the
beginning of his career, the young, clean-cut Milner appeared in a number of
war movies, including two with John Wayne, “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Operation
Pacific,” and one with Richard Widmark, “Halls of Montezuma.” (The actor did a
sizable number of war movies, of varying quality, over the course of his film
career.) But Milner also did a teen-centered comedy and a teencentric
social-issues drama.
He got his start in
television early in his career and early in the history of the medium, guesting
on “The Lone Ranger” in 1950 and recurring on eight episodes of “The Stu Erwin
Show” in 1950-51.
Milner moved
between film and TV throughout the 1950s.
In 1951’s “I Want
You,” starring Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire and Farley Granger, Milner’s
character has been drafted for service in the Korean War, and his father pleads
with Milner’s employer to declare the kid “indispensable,” which would mean he
could continue working and avoid the fight. Milner’s employer, played by
Andrews, refuses, and Milner’s character is later killed in action. Milner had
not yet made it: Though his role (if not, perhaps, his performance) is central
to the film, the New York Times did not mention him by name in its review.
The actor appeared
in the film noir “The Captive City”; the comic fantasy “My Wife’s Best Friend,”
starring Anne Baxter; and the Western “Springfield Rifle,” with Gary Cooper, to
give a sense of the miscellany of assignments Milner was drawing in the early
’50s.
In 1955 he appeared
in a small role in”Mister Roberts,” starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and
William Powell.
By 1956 the tide
had turned for Milner: He was now doing more television than film, perhaps
frustrated that he was still relegated to little more than bit parts in A
pictures and had to rely on B pictures for somewhat more substantive supporting
roles. Still, he had a couple of his most memorable film roles ahead of him.
In 1957 he appeared
in two pictures starring Burt Lancaster. The first was “Gunfight at the O.K.
Corral,” in which Milner played James, the youngest of the four Earp brothers
(at least in the movie). The second was “Sweet Smell of Success,” a very
different film in which Lancaster played a
caustic New York columnist who’s
inappropriately possessive of his sister, who becomes romantically involved
with Milner’s jazz guitarist; Lancaster ’s
character stops at nothing to destroy this relationship. Milner finally turned
in an impressive performance in an A picture, and even got his mention in the
New York Times: “Marty Milner is sincere and believable as her indomitable
romantic vis-a-vis.”
He subsequently had
decent supporting roles in A pictures “Marjorie Morningstar,” starring Natalie
Wood and Gene Kelly, and “Compulsion,” starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and
Bradford Dillman. Reviewing the latter, the Times said, “Mention should be
made, too, of Martin Milner’s restrained depiction of her fiancé.”
Despite the success
these newest film roles represented Milner was spending more and more of his
time guesting on various TV series, and he seemed to decide that exploitation
films would afford him more exposure. In 1960 he made two very silly, very bad
movies with Mamie Van Doren and the horror film “13 Ghosts,” produced by
William Castle. He was prominently featured in all of these.
But then “Route 66”
changed the course of his career.
Martin Sam Milner
was born in Detroit .
Both his parents were in showbiz: His father was a film distributor, his mother
a dancer.
Milner was a man of
various interests. He tried Broadway in 1967 in brief-running “The Ninety Day
Mistress.”
After he stopped
acting, he co-hosted a radio show in Southern California ,
“Let’s Talk HookUp,” about freshwater and saltwater fishing, for a number of
years. In the early 1970s he bought a 24-acre avocado farm where he lived with
his family.
Survivors include
Milner’s wife, Judith Bess “Judy” Jones, a former singer and actress to whom he
had been married since 1957; daughter Molly; and sons Stuart and Andrew.
Daughter Amy, who appeared in an episode of “Adam-12,” died of acute myeloid
leukemia in 2004.
---- Extract from Variety
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